Politics
News Analysis: Once again, the world sizes up a Trump presidency
WASHINGTON — As Donald Trump takes the oath of office Monday for the second time, the world is watching with a mix of fascination, curiosity, elation or dread — and a sense that this time around, those outside the United States perhaps have a better idea of what to expect from his presidency.
Even before Inauguration Day, the 2½ months of transition since Trump defeated his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, had already yielded head-spinning developments on the global scene.
Some of America’s closest traditional allies were jolted by the president-elect’s rhetoric evoking an expansionist 19th century ethos, delivered via modern-day social media blast. Populist figures, already emboldened by a tidal wave of anti-establishment electoral sentiment, have found a congenial reception in Trump’s orbit.
And autocratic governments are anticipating a far more transactional relationship with Washington, unburdened by diplomatic discourse about human rights or the rule of law.
Trump may be the most mercurial American president in decades, but embedded in that is a certain element of predictability: that nearly any long-standing international norm may well fall by the wayside. The keenly felt fragility of a post-World War II rules-based order is its own kind of road map, some veteran observers suggest.
Many foreign leaders “are no longer scrambling to figure out what to do,” said Daniel Fried, who spent nearly four decades as a U.S. Foreign Service officer.
“They know they have to plan for all contingencies,” said Fried, now with the Atlantic Council think tank. “They have a better sense this time, though it still rattles them.”
Trump’s heavy footfall in the final days before assuming office almost certainly brought about the finalization of a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement in the devastating war in the Gaza Strip. The deal drafted by the Biden administration took effect the day before Trump’s swearing-in.
Though Trump has backed off on a boast that he would halt the fighting in Ukraine in 24 hours, there is a sense among all involved parties that Trump’s presidency will alter the trajectory of the nearly three-year-old full-scale Russian invasion of its sovereign neighbor.
Then there’s China. The upheaval triggered by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the immensely popular short-video app TikTok must sever ties with its Chinese parent company or face a U.S. ban will likely surface some insights into future dealings by Washington and Beijing over accelerating technological, trade and military rivalries.
“China could be a big surprise” under Trump, said Michael Cox, an emeritus professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. One factor to watch closely, he said, were the “huge” business interests in China of the world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk, a prominent but relatively new figure in Trump’s orbit.
Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla billionaire, also has Trump’s seeming imprimatur as he shocks close partners like Germany and the United Kingdom with verbal broadsides against their elected leaders and highly amplified backing for domestic far-right forces.
With Germany’s election just over a month away, Trump has raised no objection as Musk has used his social media platform, X, to tout the far-right party Alternative for Germany as a national savior. Chancellor Olaf Scholz again Friday branded Musk’s electioneering “completely unacceptable.”
In Britain, in an upending of the decades-old “special relationship,” Musk has urged the release of a notorious jailed anti-Muslim extremist, Tommy Robinson, and loudly declared that Prime Minister Keir Starmer belongs in jail. All met by silence from Trump.
“It all sends a very disturbing message to Europe — to people friendly to the United States,” said Cox, who is also with the British think tank Chatham House.
Underscoring the populist-friendly tone of the new administration, expected inaugural attendees include Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and British firebrand politician Nigel Farage. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, who had endorsed Trump as a “man of peace,” was invited but could not attend, Hungarian media reported.
As Trump, Musk and their team have done in Europe, they have already signaled their approach to Latin America and where they will place their favors. Trump was courting Latin American leaders accused of human rights abuses and antipathy to democratic norms even before he won election.
Argentinian President Javier Milei, who styles himself after Trump and vowed to take a “chain saw” (which he often wielded at rallies) to his country’s government and institutions, is invited to the inauguration. So is El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who calls himself the world’s coolest dictator and engineered a second term in office despite a constitutional prohibition. Bukele also adopted bitcoin as a national currency, is profiting in crypto circles and said to be admired by Musk.
Allies of Trump have sought to undermine democratic leftist governments in Latin America, such as Guatemala and Colombia, and will likely reverse President Biden’s last-minute diplomatic concessions to Cuba that included taking it off the U.S. list of sponsors of international terrorism, a designation that advocates considered unfair and that damaged the struggling Cuban economy.
Mexico and Panama will be especially vexed by Trump.
Their presidents, Claudia Sheinbaum and José Raúl Mulino, respectively, are seeking a way to placate some of his demands, such as slowing illegal immigration that originates or passes through their countries, while standing up to ideas that they see as a threat to national sovereignty.
Trump has entertained declaring Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a designation that could be used to attack them militarily inside Mexican territory. He has also said he wants to take back control of the Panama Canal, a vital waterway that the U.S. once controlled as an American colony on foreign soil but was turned over to Panama in a treaty signed by then-President Carter in 1977. Trump declined to rule out using the military to seize the canal.
Trump’s nominee for secretary of State, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), has stopped short of echoing some of Trump’s most unorthodox views but largely supported an “America first” agenda, saying every policy decision must face three questions: “Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Or does it make America more prosperous?”
In the Middle East, dramatic events surrounding the cease-fire breakthrough between Israel and the militant group Hamas were drawing “split-screen” comparisons with the 1981 inauguration of Ronald Reagan, when U.S. hostages held in Iran were freed moments after the new leader took the oath of office. The presidency of Reagan’s predecessor — Jimmy Carter, who died Dec. 29 — was heavily shadowed by the long effort to free them.
Even before the first three hostages were released Sunday, Trump was quick to trumpet his own role in securing the accord. Announced Wednesday and finally ratified by Israel’s Cabinet early Saturday, the pact calls for a phased handing over of remaining captives, living and dead, seized by the Hamas fighters who surged into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza over the following 15 months has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, leaving the territory in ruins and displacing about nine-tenths of its more than 2 million people.
“This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies,” the president-elect wrote in a social media post as the breakthrough was being formalized.
Biden, for his part, acknowledged the unprecedented cooperation between Trump’s team and his own diplomats in the final push toward an accord, but could not contain himself when a reporter asked him last week if the president-elect was right to take full credit.
“Is that a joke?” he asked.
Many people in Greenland thought Trump was joking during his first presidency when he spoke of acquiring the vast island territory that is part of Denmark. But he has resurfaced the idea, refusing to rule out using military force to seize control “for the purposes of National Security.”
Europe quickly pointed out that Trump would be attacking European borders and a NATO ally.
“We have been cooperating for the last 80 years [with the U.S.] and … have a lot to offer to cooperate with,” Greenland Prime Minister Múte Egede said, “but we want also to be clear: We don’t want to be Americans.”
Fried, at the Atlantic Council, cautioned that “it was not good for the United States to have other states hedging their bets.” You never know, he said, when the U.S. will need its allies.
“I personally would take him both literally and seriously,” said Belgium-based analyst Guntram Wolff, playing off the popular political trope from Trump’s first presidential campaign, when observers parsed the difference between how his supporters and adversaries interpreted his more provocative utterances.
But he acknowledged that the world will simply have to wait and see what four more years of Trump will bring.
“He has an agenda; he makes strong points,” said Wolff, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels think tank. “And he’s been elected.”
Politics
Video: Walz Drops Re-Election Bid as Minnesota Fraud Scandal Grows
new video loaded: Walz Drops Re-Election Bid as Minnesota Fraud Scandal Grows
transcript
transcript
Walz Drops Re-Election Bid as Minnesota Fraud Scandal Grows
Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota abandoned his re-election bid to focus on handling a scandal over fraud in social service programs that grew under his administration.
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“I’ve decided to step out of this race, and I’ll let others worry about the election while I focus on the work that’s in front of me for the next year.” “All right, so this is Quality Learing Center — meant to say Quality ‘Learning’ Center.” “Right now we have around 56 kids enrolled. If the children are not here, we mark absence.”
By Shawn Paik
January 6, 2026
Politics
Pelosi heir-apparent calls Trump’s Venezuela move a ‘lawless coup,’ urges impeachment, slams Netanyahu
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A San Francisco Democrat demanded the impeachment of President Donald Trump, accusing him of carrying out a “coup” against Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener, seen as the likely congressional successor to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, also took a swipe at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Wiener has frequently drawn national attention for his progressive positions, including his legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom designating California as a “refuge” for transgender children and remarks at a San Francisco Pride Month event referring to California children as “our kids.”
In a lengthy public statement following the Trump administration’s arrest and extradition of Maduro to New York, Wiener said the move shows the president only cares about “enriching his public donors” and “cares nothing for the human or economic cost of conquering another country.”
KAMALA HARRIS BLASTS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S CAPTURE OF VENEZUELA’S MADURO AS ‘UNLAWFUL AND UNWISE’
California State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, speaks at a rally. (John Sciulli/Getty Images)
“This lawless coup is an invitation for China to invade Taiwan, for Russia to escalate its conquest in Ukraine, and for Netanyahu to expand the destruction of Gaza and annex the West Bank,” said Wiener, who originally hails from South Jersey.
He suggested that the Maduro operation was meant to distract from purportedly slumping poll numbers, the release of Jeffrey Epstein-related documents, and to essentially seize another country’s oil reserves.
“Trump is a total failure,” Wiener said. “By engaging in this reckless act, Trump is also making the entire world less safe … Trump is making clear yet again that, under this regime, there are no rules, there are no laws, there are no norms – there is only whatever Trump thinks is best for himself and his cronies at a given moment in time.”
GREENE HITS TRUMP OVER VENEZUELA STRIKES, ARGUES ACTION ‘DOESN’T SERVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’
In response, the White House said the administration’s actions against Maduro were “lawfully executed” and included a federal arrest warrant.”
“While Democrats take twisted stands in support of indicted drug smugglers, President Trump will always stand with victims and families who can finally receive closure thanks to this historic action,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.
Supporters of the operation have pushed back on claims of “regime change” – an accusation Wiener also made – pointing to actions by Maduro-aligned courts that barred top opposition leader María Corina Machado from running, even as publicly reported results indicated her proxy, Edmundo González Urrutia, won the vote.
“Trump’s illegal invasion of Venezuela isn’t about drugs, and it isn’t about helping the people of Venezuela or restoring Venezuelan democracy,” Wiener added. “Yes, Maduro is awful, but that’s not what the invasion is about. It’s all about oil and Trump’s collapsing support at home.”
EX-ESPN STAR KEITH OLBERMANN CALLS FOR IMPEACHMENT OF TRUMP OVER VENEZUELA STRIKES THAT CAPTURED MADURO
Around the country, a handful of other Democrats referenced impeachment or impeachable offenses, but did not go as far as Wiener in demanding such proceedings.
Rep. April McClain-Delaney, D-Md., who represents otherwise conservative “Mountain Maryland” in the state’s panhandle, said Monday that Democrats should “imminently consider impeachment proceedings,” according to TIME.
McClain-Delaney said Trump acted without constitutionally-prescribed congressional authorization and wrongly voiced “intention to ‘run’ the country.”
SCHUMER BLASTED TRUMP FOR FAILING TO OUST MADURO — NOW WARNS ARREST COULD LEAD TO ‘ENDLESS WAR’
One frequent Trump foil, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., cited in a statement that she has called for Trump’s impeachment in the past; blaming Republicans for letting the president “escape accountability.”
“Today, many Democrats have understandably questioned whether impeachment is possible again under the current political reality. I am reconsidering that view,” Waters said.
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“What we are witnessing is an unprecedented escalation of an unlawful invasion, the detention of foreign leaders, and a president openly asserting power far beyond what the Constitution allows,” she said, while appearing to agree with Trump that Maduro was involved in drug trafficking and “collaborat[ion] with… terrorists.”
Wiener’s upcoming primary is considered the deciding election in the D+36 district, while a handful of other lesser-known candidates have reportedly either filed FEC paperwork or declared their candidacy, including San Francisco Councilwoman Connie Chan.
Politics
California Congressman Doug LaMalfa dies, further narrowing GOP margin in Congress
California Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) has died, GOP leadership and President Trump confirmed Tuesday morning.
“Jacquie and I are devastated about the sudden loss of our friend, Congressman Doug LaMalfa. Doug was a loving father and husband, and staunch advocate for his constituents and rural America,” said Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the House majority whip, in a post on X. “Our prayers are with Doug’s wife, Jill, and their children.”
LaMalfa, 65, was a fourth-generation rice farmer from Oroville and staunch Trump supporter who had represented his Northern California district for the past 12 years. His seat was one of several that was in jeopardy under the state’s redrawn districts approved by voters with Proposition 50.
Emergency personnel responded to a 911 call from LaMalfa’s residence at 6:50 p.m. Monday, according to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office. The congressman was taken to the Enloe Medical Center in Chico, where he died while undergoing emergency surgery, authorities said.
An autopsy to determine the cause of death is planned, according to the sheriff’s office.
LaMalfa’s district — which stretches from the northern outskirts of Sacramento, through Redding at the northern end of the Central Valley and Alturas in the state’s northeast corner — is largely rural, and constituents have long said they felt underrepresented in liberal California.
LaMalfa put much of his focus on boosting federal water supplies to farmers, and seeking to reduce environmental restrictions on logging and extraction of other natural resources.
One LaMalfa’s final acts in the U.S. House was to successfully push for the reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools Act, a long-standing financial aid program for schools surrounded by untaxed federal forest land, whose budgets could not depend upon property taxes, as most public schools do. Despite broad bipartisan support, Congress let it lapse in 2023.
In an interview with The Times as he was walking onto the House floor in mid-December, LaMalfa said he was frustrated with Congress’s inability to pass even a popular bill like that reauthorization.
The Secure Rural Schools Act, he said, was a victim of a Congress in which “it’s still an eternal fight over anything fiscal.” It is “annoying,” LaMalfa said, “how hard it is to get basic things done around here.”
In a statement posted on X, California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff said he considered LaMalfa “a friend and partner” and that the congressman was “deeply committed to his community and constituents, working to make life better for those he represented.”
“Doug’s life was one of great service and he will be deeply missed,” Schiff wrote.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement called LaMalfa a “devoted public servant who deeply loved his country, his state, and the communities he represented.”
“While we often approached issues from different perspectives, he fought every day for the people of California with conviction and care,” Newsom said.
Flags at the California State Capitol in Sacramento will be flown at half-staff in honor of the congressman, according to the governor.
Before his death, LaMalfa was facing a difficult reelection bid to hold his seat. After voters approved Proposition 50 in November — aimed at giving California Democrats more seats in Congress — LaMalfa was drawn into a new district that heavily favored his likely opponent, State Sen. Mike McGuire, a Democrat who represents the state’s northwest coast.
LaMalfa’s death puts the Republican majority in Congress in further jeopardy, with a margin of just two votes to secure passage of any bill along party lines after the resignation of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday evening.
Adding to the party’s troubles, Rep. Jim Baird, a Republican from Indiana, was hospitalized on Tuesday for a car crash described by the White House as serious. While Baird is said to be stable, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson from Louisiana, will not be able to rely on his attendance. And he has one additional caucus member – Thomas Massie of Kentucky – who has made a habit of voting against the president, bringing their margin for error down effectively to zero.
President Trump, addressing a gathering of GOP House members at the Kennedy Center, addressed the news at the start of his remarks, expressing “tremendous sorrow at the loss of a great member” and stating his speech would be made in LaMalfa’s honor.
“He was the leader of the Western caucus – a fierce champion on California water issues. He was great on water. ‘Release the water!’ he’d scream out. And a true defender of American children.”
“You know, he voted with me 100% of the time,” Trump added.
A native of Oroville, LaMalfa attended Butte College and then earned an ag-business degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He served in the California Assembly from 2002 to 2008 and the California State Senate from 2010 to 2012. Staunchly conservative, he was an early supporter of Proposition 209, which ended affirmative action in California, and he also pushed for passage of the Protection of Marriage Act, Proposition 22, which banned same-sex marriage in California.
While representing California’s 1st District, LaMalfa focused largely on issues affecting rural California and other western states. In 2025, Congressman he was elected as Chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, which focuses on legislation affected rural areas.
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